Fat Cats by George Mercer North Saanich: George Mercer, 2018 $19.99 / 9780987975461 Reviewed by Ron Dart First published Sept. 17, 2018 * Born in Gander, Newfoundland, George Mercer worked for 35 years as a park warden, starting in 1979 at Newfoundland’s Terra Nova National Park and ending in 2012 as monitoring ecologist at the…
Read more #376 Gulf Islands parks and predators
Deep River Night by Patrick Lane Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2018 $34.00 / 9780771048173 Reviewed by Dustin Cole First published September 16th, 2018 * Governor General Award-winning poet Patrick Lane (born in Nelson in 1939) returns to fiction with Deep River Night, a novel that reviewer Dustin Cole — in an email to The Ormsby…
Read more #375 The BC industrial pastoral
This Will Be Good by Mallory Tater Toronto: Book*hug, 2018 $18.00 / 9781771663946 Reviewed by Elee Kraljii Gardiner First published September 14th, 2018 * This Will Be Good is the debut book of poetry by Mallory Tater, an Ottawa native who studied writing at the University of Victoria before settling in Vancouver. “Shot through this…
Read more #374 Mallory Tater and the feel of fire
Landscapes and Landforms of Western Canada by Olav Slaymaker (editor) Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017 $149 (U.S.) / 9783319445953 Reviewed by Syd Cannings First published September 13th, 2018 * Thirty-four leading specialists contribute to Landscapes and Landforms of Western Canada, a collection of essays edited by Olav Slaymaker, professor emeritus of geography at UBC. “Wherever you are in western…
Read more #373 Olav’s love of landscape
The Suitcase and the Jar: Travels with a Daughter’s Ashes by Becky Livingston Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $22.95 / 9781987915747 Reviewed by Carys Cragg First published September 12th, 2018 * After Becky Livingston lost her 23-year old daughter Rachel to a brain tumour, she set off on a global walkabout for 798 days, scattering…
Read more #372 Scattering Rachel’s ashes
Tom Burrows by Scott Watson and Ian Wallace Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2018. Co-published with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery $50.00 / 9781927958889 Reviewed by Robert Amos First published September 11th, 2018 * Born in Ontario in 1940, Tom Burrows moved to Vancouver in 1960 hoping to study medicine, but instead earned a B.A….
Read more #371 Burning down the house
songen: new poems by Patrick Friesen Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2018 $19.95 9781896949642 Reviewed by Danny Peart First published September 10th, 2018 * Victoria poet Patrick Friesen (born 1946 in Steinbach, Manitoba) also works with dancers, choreographers, and composers, and writes songs for musicians. Reviewer Danny Peart calls his latest book, songen, “the work…
Read more #370 We were songen and rejoicing
Growing Home: the Legacy of Kootenay Elders by Lee Reid Nelson: Growing Home Elders Press, 2017 $26.95 / 9780995816404 Reviewed by Duff Sutherland First published September 08th, 2018 * In Growing Home: the Legacy of Kootenay Elders, Lee Reid profiles seventeen men and women, born between the 1920s and 1950s, who made their lives in the…
Read more #369 West Kootenay lives and land
Kuei, My Friend: A Conversation on Race and Reconciliation by Deni Ellis Béchard and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, translated by Deni Ellis Béchard and Howard Scott Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772011951 Reviewed by Dylan Burrows First published September 07th, 2018 * Following the controversial death of 11-year old Ojibwe girl Makayla Sault from leukaemia in…
Read more #368 “Walk like an Indian”
Grizzlies, Gales, and Giant Salmon: Life at a Rivers Inlet Fishing Lodge by Pat Ardley Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $24.95 / 9781550178319 Reviewed by Jeanette Taylor First published September 06th, 2018 * Pat Ardley’s Grizzlies, Gales, and Giant Salmon “tracks an urban couple’s hair-raising adaptation to the coastal wilderness,” notes reviewer Jeanette Taylor. “When something went…
Read more #367 Float camp at Rivers Inlet
Dear Evelyn by Kathy Page Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2018 $19.95 / 9781771962094 Reviewed by Paul Headrick * Editor’s note: Dear Evelyn was awarded the 2019 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize, fiction category and won the 2018 Rogers Writers’ Trust fiction prize. It was also a 2018 Kirkus best book of the year; a Globe and…
Read more #366 Evelyn, Harry, and the sick rose
First published Sept. 4, 2018. Narrow Bridge by Barbara Pelman Vancouver: Ronsdale Press 2017 $15.95 / 9781553805083 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * New from Victoria poet is Narrow Bridge, a collection that Christopher Levenson finds “humane, honest, well-crafted, and keenly aware of the outside world.” Pelman takes the reader on a walkabout to Italy, Portugal, Sweden, and…
Read more #365 The texture of daily living
First published Sept. 3, 2018. Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada by Lloyd L. Wong (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017 $34.95 / 9780774833806 Reviewed by Jennifer Lau * Jennifer Lau considers Lloyd Wong’s Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada, a collection of scholarly essays tracing the migration of people, ideas, and goods across the Pacific. Lau…
Read more #364 Chinese migration and mobility
Smith House II by Michael Prokopow, with photography by Michael Perlmutter and a foreword by Douglas Coupland Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2018 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781940743387 Reviewed by Harold Kalman First published Sept. 2, 2018 * Historian of architecture Hal Kalman appreciates Michael Prokopow’s Smith House II, the biography of a house in West Vancouver designed…
Read more #363 An Erickson-Massey masterpiece
First published Sept. 1, 2018. The Night the Forest Came to Town by Charles Ghigna, illustrated by Annie Wilkinson Victoria: Orca Books, 2018 $19.95 / 9781459816503 Reviewed by Carol Anne Shaw * Nature reclaims and transforms a city in Charles Gigna’s The Night the Forest Came to Town, illustrated by Annie Wilkinson. Carol Anne Shaw notes…
Read more #362 City night magic
First published Sept. 1, 2018. Don’t Tell Me What to Do by Dina Del Bucchia Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017 $17.95 / 9781551527017 Reviewed by Claire Mulligan * Claire Mulligan praises the complex, compelling, and masterful short stories in Dina Del Bucchia’s Don’t Tell Me What to Do. Mulligan also commends Del Bucchia’s use of irony….
Read more #361 Irony, beauty, and neon
First published Aug. 30, 2018. Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado by Daniel Marshall Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2018. $24.95 / 9781553805021 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * “The history of British Columbia is brief,” wrote W.A. Bailie-Grohman. “Gold made it and gold unmade it.” In Claiming the Land, Daniel Marshall…
Read more #360 Gold made British Columbia
An Uncommon Road: How Canadian Sikhs Struggled out of the Fringes and into the Mainstream by Gian Singh Sandhu Vancouver: Echo Storytelling, 2018. Available though Heritage Group Distribution $29.95 / 9781987900163 Reviewed by Gurpreet Singh First published August 29, 2018 * Gian Singh Sandhu came to Canada in 1970 and settled in Williams Lake, where…
Read more #359 From Punjab to Williams Lake
Our Familiar Hunger by Laisha Rosnau Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2018 $18.95 / 9780889713444 First published August 29, 2018 Reviewed by Elee Kraljii Gardiner * In Our Familiar Hunger, Laisha Rosnau of Vernon honours her Ukrainian grandmothers on their traumatic journey between Russia and the Canadian West. “Rosnau’s narrative is sewn tightly into these verses with…
Read more #358 Ukrainian soil and blood
First published Aug. 28, 2018. Up In Arms by Amanda Spottiswoode, illustrations by Molly March Victoria: Heritage House, 2017. $12.95 / 9781772032024 Reviewed by Steve Pocock * In 1939 and 1940, some 6,000 British children, known as child evacuees and British guest children, were sent to Canada to escape the threat of German invasion. The…
Read more #357 Refugee kids meet Cougar Annie